Seanad debates
Wednesday, 26 February 2003
Local Government Bill 2003: Second Stage.
There is no constraint, in terms of membership, for those who are prepared to work hard on local authorities. We could, however, improve the situation for Senators. The Minister for Finance has greatly improved facilities for Oireachtas Members in general, but most of those improvements were for Deputies. The work of Senators is similar to that of Deputies, but Senators do not each have a secretary or office and receive little help to maintain their constituency offices. The Government should look at this area. One Oireachtas Member who is also a member of a health board told me that if he was chairman of that board, some of the money he would receive would go to maintaining a constituency office. That demonstrates Senators' desire to serve the public. The option that Deputies have to employ a secretary in either their constituency or in the Oireachtas should be available to Senators.
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